


cold smoke seeping out of colder throats

by theredhoodie



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 11:35:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9606026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredhoodie/pseuds/theredhoodie
Summary: When Gideon sends the Legends to Chicago in 2014 after a time signature, they don't expect to find Leonard Snart, alive and breathing. As they piece together what happened to him and connect the dots between a mysterious vial of liquid and the Legion of Doom, Sara Lance has to fight a personal battle as she faces the realization of Leonard's return.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so there's a lot of things to say here.
> 
> 1) The title is a lyric from Daughter's "Still"  
> 2) The entire first scene of this, up until the first break, was word for word what happened in a dream of mine last week and the whole reason why I wrote this in the first place.  
> 3) This turned into a whole big mess/crossover/episode-like storyline with Sara/Leonard angst thrown in the middle.  
> 4) Basically everything in this world is the same as the show, except...well, you'll see.   
> 5) This takes place in LoT before the episode they find Rip and in Flash around 3x9 and 3x10.
> 
> Enjoy and sorry for the mess.....

 

"Tell me we aren't just going to sit here twiddling our thumbs," Amaya said what they were all thinking.

The restaurant they were in was full of people of all ages, from singles sitting at the counter up front, to families filling the booths around the Legends. They were shoved into a booth too small for all of them. Sara, Stein and Ray on one side, Mick, Amaya and Nate on the other. Jax had pulled up a seat at the end of the table, crowding the aisle.

"Gideon couldn't get a lock on the aberration," Sara said, though they all knew that. Gideon's exact words had been, "I've found a strange time signature in Chicago, November 16th, 2014" and had given them a three-block radius. Within the radius was a hospital, a dozen apartment complexes, restaurants, a bowling alley, a post office and three dry cleaners, among other things.

Beside Sara, Martin frowned. "Now, she didn't exactly say aberration did she?" he said, using his hands to speak like always.

The others looked at him quizzically.

"She said _time signature_ ," Martin emphasized.

Sara shrugged. "Aren't they one in the same?"

"It is possible, Miss Lance, but what if this is something different? Something we're not accustomed to dealing with?"

"Something like what, Professor?" Nate asked.

"Well, I'm not entirely sure. I just know that Gideon is a highly intelligent machine and she chooses her vocabulary carefully. She always uses the word _aberration_ to describe an aberration, not _time signature_ ," Martin concluded.

"Grey's got a point," Jax spoke up.

"I'm gonna find some beer," Mick grumbled, even though everyone knew that there wasn't a bar in this place. He disappeared through the door. The only consolation was that he had a comm still, which meant they could track and communicate with him.

Amaya scooted a little farther away from Nate, who was squished up against the window. "So if we're not looking for an aberration, what are we looking for?"

A shadow fell over the table. "I think that may be me."

Amaya and Nate, who were facing the door, saw him first. A newcomer they didn't recognize, tall and in black, greying hair, a look on his face that was either a grimace of pain or a snarky curl in his lips.

Jax twisted in his seat and looked up, shock written across his face. Martin and Ray also looked just as surprised. For once, Stein was rendered speechless. Ray gaped, his jaw slack. Amaya was the only one to notice that Sara's muscles had tensed, her head stayed looking straight in front of her, the knuckles of her hands turning white with pressure.

"H—how?" Martin finally said as the man moved, slowly and stiffly, to fall into the place Mick had previously vacated. He had a backpack slung over his shoulder, which he let fall to the floor.

"Don't know," the man replied, his inflection something like Amaya had never heard before. It was entirely unique, slow and steady like a glacier moving over land. He rested a hand on the table and Sara sat back, taking her hands with her, dropping them to her lap. "Sara," he said, his voice whittled away to something soft, but sharp.

Sara Lance took in a deep breath, squared her shoulders and then met his eyes, icy blue. "You're the time aberration," she said simply.

"Time signature," Martin corrected.

"Excuse me," Amaya said, speaking for both her and Nate. "Who exactly is this? Who are you?"

Sara and the man didn't break their gaze, something silent passing between them. "Snart," they said at the same time.

The name brought a glossy wash of tears to Sara's eyes and she turned away from him as the bell over the door jingled.

"Snart," Nate repeated. "Leonard Snart? That one—the one who got blown up?" Both he and Amaya knew of the man, but had never known him, just as neither of them knew Rip Hunter, except in name.

"The liquor store's not open yet," Mick's booming voice sliced through the chatter in the restaurant. He stopped short when he saw Leonard. He blinked, rubbed is eyes roughly, and then looked again. Still there. "Doc," he said, clapping a hand down on Martin's shoulder. "I thought you fixed me."

"What?" Martin looked jostled. He glanced from Mick to Leonard and back again. "Oh, Mr. Rory."

"Is this in my head?" Mick asked, sensing the tension in the air amidst his team.

"I assure you that it's not," Martin said, reaching up and awkwardly patting Mick's hand. Or, he would have, if Mick hadn't scooted away, dragging a chair over and sitting down hard, narrowing his eyes at his formerly dead partner.

"Hey, Mick," Leonard said. "It's been a while."

"You're seeing this?" Mick asked, eyes jerking around like a cornered animal. A unison of 'yes' was returned to him.

"Enough of this," Sara said. Her composure was back. She laid her hands down on the table. "How are you here?"

"Like I said, I don't know. Apparently materialized out of thin air at the hospital. Gave some nurses a scare," Len shrugged. What followed was definitely a grimace.

"How long?" Ray asked, speaking for the first time.

Leonard's hand tightened against the handle on the top of the backpack next to him. "A week." He gave Mick _a look_ as the other man poked his shoulder.

"He's real, Mick," Amaya insisted. "I can smell the rubber of his shoes. They're new. Hallucinations don't carry a scent."

Mick grunted, blood boiling.

"A week," Sara echoed. "What have you been doing?"

Len smirked then, tilting his head in a knowing way. "The same thing I've always done."

"You've been stealing," Jax nodded, filling in the blanks. He was one of the least judgmental of the crew, and, if he was being honest, if any of them had rematerialized in a strange new place after being blown up, they would probably have stolen stuff, too. Clothes, food, the essentials.

Leonard closed his eyes for a moment and bobbed his head. "Yes."

"What's this?" Mick reached toward the pack sitting on the floor.

Len snatched it away. "Ah, ah."

"How did you find us?" Sara asked, once again clasping her hands together to hold in the shaking of unencumbered emotions.

His cool exterior faltered. "I don't know. I just walked and saw Ray there through the window." He motioned to the billionaire.

"I don't believe in coincidence," Sara said under her breath. "How do we know this is really you?"

Leonard rolled his eyes, but knew Sara was nothing if not cautious, and she had ever right to be skeptical. "Mick," he turned to his lifetime partner in crime. "You were gonna go after Lisa when you were Chronos and captured me." Mick grunted in recognition; no one else had been on that ship, and while it was an easy guess, something in Leonard's eyes spoke the truth.

"Sara." Leonard swept his gaze to the blonde now, whose hardened eyes were still glossy, but under control. "Rummy," he said, but everyone had seen them playing cards, it wasn't anything hard to guess. "The storage room behind that Irish bar."

"It's him," Sara said quickly, sucking in a breath and once again twisting around to look at the door. Something was nagging at the back of her head, telling her that _something_ was going to happen. "What's in the bag?"

Snart's eyes also flickered toward the door. "Something I stole."

Sara tilted her head. Ray tried launching himself over the table, but failed. Using the distraction, Mick snatched the bag from Leonard and ripped it open. He lifted a glass cylinder, some sort of bright, glowy substance in the vile inside. Leoanrd growled and shoved it back into the bag.

"What is _that_?" Jax asked.

"Something powerful. Something alien," Leonard said, eyes moving toward the door. The whole restaurant was brightly lit thanks to the floor to ceiling windows. It gave them a view of the outside, but unfortunately also let anyone outside see them clearly. "Nicked it off of some kid claiming to be a warlock."

"Why?" Nate asked.

Leonard turned to the historian sharply. "Who are you?"

"I'm…Nate. You can call me Steel."

Leonard furrowed his brow. "No I won't."

"Snart," Sara's voice was sharp and commanding. "What does that do?"

"From what I saw," he paused and shook his head. "Temporary superpowers. Just one drop and this kid was a tank."

Sara was getting a sinking feeling that all of this was connected: the vial, finding Snart, searching for aberrations, fighting Ray's dubbed Legion of Doom.

"They're coming," Leonard said, catching her attention. He moved to stand, forcing Mick to do so as well, the chair scraping back against the tile floor loudly.

"Will they attack here? There's at least fifty civilians," Ray said as the table all got to their feet, knowing a fight was coming.

Leonard put the bag over his shoulder and slipped his arm through the other strap. "They don't seem to care."

Sara took charge. "Amaya, come with me and Snart. We'll go out the back. The rest of you, hold them off, split up, give them multiple targets. We're going back to the Waverider."

It took Leonard just a moment's pause to realize Rip wasn't among those at the table, and with the way everyone jumped at Sara's word, much had changed since he'd been gone.

"Let's go," Sara said, grabbing his elbow for a split second before letting go as if it was on fire. They made their way toward the bathrooms and the door to the kitchen, which they slipped through. Ignoring the staff and the uproar they made as they wove between the counters and stovetops, the three reached the door to the back alley and stepped from the humid, stuffy building to the chilled fall air. Just as the door closed, they could hear a distant commotion, most likely the rest of the team.

Amaya immediately started toward the left, knowing exactly where the ship was. Sara started after her, and then stopped when Leonard didn't follow.

"Snart," she said, getting his attention. He shook his head and found her with his eyes, nodding and following. She frowned, but said nothing as the three walked as fast as they could down the alley, toward the street.

They rounded the corner and saw Firestorm flying through the air, heard the screams and yells of civilians. Sara tried not to think of the aberrations they were causing because of this trip. Down at the end of the street, a thin, skinny boy—he couldn't have been more than eighteen—in a red hoodie rounded the corner. His eyes zeroed in on Snart and Leonard took a step back.

He didn't have to say a thing.

"Run," Sara said, reaching toward Amaya. The three started off, running away from the foray, away from the junkie looking kid in the red hoodie. Sara stuck with Leonard, though she was always one or two paces in front of him. Amaya touched her necklace mid-run, taking on the speed of the cheetah. They ran through a small park, splitting as the kid caught up to them. He wasn't nearly as fast as Amaya, whatever the vial had given him was beginning to wear off, but it was enough to be concerned about.

Two black clad bodyguards followed him in the distance. Sara paused for half a second to let Leonard catch up, a curse leaving her lips as she saw their odds.

Amaya paused halfway across the park, scattering pigeons and sending mothers squealing away with their children. "You're pretty cute," she said, taking on the role of lure, of distraction. The kid stopped, but then they were running again. She let him get close, a step behind. She flashed a smile at him as she sprang over a park bench.

She skidded to a halt on the concrete sidewalk.

"Where'd you get your power from?" he asked, thin chest heaving. His eyes were dark and bloodshot, crazed with desire and _need_. She could spot an addiction when she saw one.

"I'm more interested in where you get yours from." She casually brushed her hair over her shoulder.

"That's not how this works," the kid smirked as his two guards' heavy footfalls slammed closer to them on the sidewalk.

Amaya took a deep breath, hoping Sara had gotten Snart far enough away. She touched her necklace, imbuing her with the powerhouse muscle and sturdiness of a rhino.

"That trinket?" the kid said, just before she bulldozed him and his guards over.

Half a block away, Leonard's legs gave out in an alley. His hand gripped the wall as he fell to the ground. Sara stumbled to a standstill and turned to him, her breathing heavy, sweat beading up on her forehead.

"What's wrong?" she asked as he used the wall for support.

He didn't answer right away. He couldn't. Each breath wasn't enough, parts of him that should be working fine, weren't. It had been that way since he showed up out of thin air at the hospital. "I just…I need to stop," he gasped out. He struggled to get out of the straps of the bag on his back. "Take this."

She refused. "No." She took a step back from him.

He used all of his strength to look up at her, summoning fierceness in his eyes to tell her he wasn't messing around. "Sara. Take this, run. Get it back to the Waverider."

"No," she said again, this time more powerfully. She crouched down, ignoring the way her heart beat at the base of her throat. "I'm not going to leave you."

She put her hand on the bag and pushed it toward him instead.

He rested his head against the brick and let out a wry laugh, a huff of dry breath. "People like me don't get third chances, Sara."

He was giving up. She wasn't going to let him. She'd already lost him once, that wasn't going to happen again.

She blinked away a fresh wash of tears and brushed her fingertips against his temple. "I'm not leaving you," she said again, her voice hard, like a command. "Get up."

Using the wall and accepting her hand, they got him to his feet. He slung the bag over his back again. He held her gaze and finally nodded. She let go of his hand and they continued, more at a jog than a run.

"Gideon," Sara said, touching the comm piece in her ear.

"Yes, Captain Lance?" the AI responded.

"We're having a bit of trouble. Can you zero in on my position?"

"Of course."

The fight in front of the restaurant had gone on long enough for some off-duty cops to show up. Thankfully no one shot, but they weren't really given much of a choice. They gapped at the flying man on fire, at the man of steel, of the man in a mechanical suit. The Warlock, that's what Nate decided to dub him for now, wasn't in sight, but his followers were stronger than they looked. Even Mick was having trouble _trying_ to not kill them because they just kept coming, strong and fast.

Just as they started to get exhausted, with sirens in the distance, the Waverider materialized in mid air between the high rises, causing even more commotion. The cargo bay opened and they headed that way, fighting off the followers until the door locked shut and the ship flew away, away from the city, though it circled invisible in the air for a while as its crew recollected themselves.

"Snart!" Mick's voice roared through the hallways, a wild bull on a rampage. The others headed toward the command center, where they presumed everyone would be. Firestorm broke into two mid-step halfway there.

"Stein!" Sara's voice was small but made its way to them all. She and Leonard were in the bridge, though Leonard looked a little worse for the wear. Sara shoved the bag with the vial at the Professor. "See if you can figure this out with Gideon."

Martin nodded, but didn't leave right away. Everyone crowded into the room, unsure of how to deal with this newly undead team member. Mick's voice got closer. No one knew what would happen when he got here. A fist fight? A brotherly hug? The relationship between the two crooks was never easy for anyone to understand.

Sara stopped herself from touching Leonard's arm again. "Are you okay?" she asked, rattled from the way he appeared to lose all of his energy and ability to move back in that alleyway.

"Me? I'm peachy," Leonard said, just before collapsing.

* * *

No one knew what it was like to fight the bloodlust. It was more a part of her than her own soul. She wasn't entirely sure that Constantine had righted her correctly when he bound her soul to her body after her resurrection. She killed those guards with Rip. She had a hard time not killing those terrorists at the weapons auction. And just now, she'd completely cleared out a little Irish bar with a bar fight that landed more than one person in the hospital.

Blood dried down her chin from a punch to the jaw. The entire place was empty but all she wanted to do was inflict _more_. She threw herself against the door, but it was hard wood and sturdy.

"I wouldn't do that again unless you want to dislocate your shoulder," Snart said from the darkness. They were in a large storage room. There was a little room to the side where there was a huge basin sink and a small light, leaving the cool, dark place filled with a dim, yellow glow.

She turned on him, a snarl caught in her throat. "Let me out," she said darkly, her muscles coiling, ready to charge.

Leonard frowned, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway in front of the sink. "I don't think that would be wise."

Sara narrowed her eyes at him and, having no one else to take out her bloodlust on, rushed toward him. He had been expecting it, and he caught her easily, grabbing her wrists and slamming her back against the metal shelving unit bolted to the middle of the room. He collided with her a bit harder than he expected, her momentum adding to his own. She gasped, the air knocked out of her slightly.

"Let me go," she hissed, though her words were airy, without the proper exertion behind them.

"I don't think so," he said, crowding her space, forcing her to stay still.

"You don't understand," she said through clenched teeth.

"I don't. But I can guess. You lose yourself to this bloodlust. It takes you over, you give in. Rinse. Repeat."

She struggled under his grasp, but he was stronger than he looked for rarely using physical defense in a fight.

"It makes me a monster. I'm a monster," she said, her words low and chilling. She struggled again but then caved, letting her muscles relax, her head resting back against the shelf.

"Everyone is a monster, Sara," Leonard said, his voice harsh, frank. He wasn't going to sugarcoat this. "I've done some pretty god damn monstrous things."

"It's not the same," she whispered.

His grip on her wrists loosened.

"Ever since I was brought back in the Lazarus Pit, even after I got my soul back…I haven't been able to feel much of anything. I can convince myself I do but…I don't." At least, her bloodlust was fading. He had turned her attention toward something else.

"Have you tried?"

She searched the shadows of his face for an answer to his question. Finding none, she pushed herself up on her toes and kissed him, pressing her lips to his, reveling in the sting from the cut on her lip, focusing on the cold metal pressing sharply into her back.

"That's not what I meant," he said, pulling away.

She breathed out, expecting to see frost, but no. As cold as he was, he was still only human.

 

 

 

 

 

A week later, he stopped her from killing Martin Stein. They'd drank and played cards and shared sharp, whiskey kisses in the privacy of her room. His hand tangled in her hair, their lips parted against each other. She wanted more, she always did, but it was enough. It made her _feel_ enough. That and her training with Kendra helped her control her urges for blood.

 

 

 

 

 

When they almost died, freezing, they left each other with parting stories of their lives that no one else knew. After he chose the team over Mick, after she got fixed up by Gideon, she visited his room. It was dark and sparse, just like him.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Peachy," he snapped.

She hovered by the door until he looked at her. "So you're allowed to help me but I'm not allowed to help you?" she asked him.

"What do I need help with?"

"For starters, you just…Mick was your best friend."

Leonard clenched his teeth. "Don't."

"You're only human," she said.

"We're all monsters."

And then it happened, with no warning and little thought. It was a physical connection Leonard had denied himself most of his life. Sara was one of the few people in his entire lifetime where he didn't flinch when she touched him, and he welcomed it.

She kissed his lips, his jaw, his neck. Their clothes descended to the floor, piece by piece. He pressed her against the wall, as much of their bodies touching as possible. He bit her lip between his teeth and she forced him to the bed. Sara's hair fell into his face as she straddled him, rolling her hips, the heat of their bodies mingling. Her hand splayed across his chest, feeling his heart beat under her palm, furious and human and alive. She kissed him hard and dragged her teeth across the sensitive skin of his neck as he reached down and pushed inside of her.

She gasped and bit down, leaving marks. Sitting back, she moved her hips and legs and fell into a rhythm, focusing on his hands against her skin, his soft, quiet, animalistic sounds. It had been a while since she'd been with a man, the sensations equally pleasurable, her body remembering things she thought it'd forgotten. She could only move so fast, and he was ever the impatient one, wrapping his hands around her shoulders and pulling her down, crushing their lips together as he moved faster, dragging his hands over her skin to hold onto her hips. Her breath caught in her throat and she dug her nails into his chest, her teeth sinking into the flesh of his shoulder as her body fell back into old, natural states, ones she didn't have to think about.

Sara let out a singular curse of exhilaration as every little thing coiled up inside of her snapped, causing her hips to buck, fighting against his grip until he joined her, moving fast and jagged, then slow and digging his own fingers into her flesh. They panted, shiny with sweat as their bodies rode out the sensations, until she sat back and dragged her hands down his chest.

"We're all monsters," he'd told her, reaching a hand up, brushing over her breast, her sensitive skin buzzing, to her face. She, a small smirk on her face, lightly bit his thumb and then crawled off of him. The cool air attacked their bodies.

 

 

 

 

 

It would happen again and again. Not an excessive amount, they were so-called heroes, after all, and Vandal Savage was always there, taunting Kendra, testing the team. Then things broke when she was left in the 50's with Ray and Kendra. Without him there, reminding her of who she was, she returned to the League of Assassins. She had no choice. She couldn't become a serial killer in 1952.

When she saw him, after becoming a robot, a shell of her former self, with his hand _gone_ , pain on his face, fighting for his best friend, her walls came crashing down again. It was hard to place, hard to deal with that after two years of trying to erase all of that, but there it was, laid out plainly in front of her.

"What do we do now?" she'd asked him once they'd stood silent together in her room. He kept flexing the hand that Gideon had grown back for him.

His eyes flickered over to her. "We go back to how things were."

"Do we?" She scoffed and crossed her arms.

"We were a lot of things before," is all he said before he left.

They got back into some sort of rhythm. It wasn't anything they'd had before, but it worked. There were no kisses, but a distant companionship that suited them. They were comfortable enough to touch each other occasionally, amidst the fighting, amidst Savage and the future and the Time Masters. They played Rummy again. They fought next to each other.

There was always a fierce protection over the other, something they couldn't shake.

 

 

 

 

 

She should have expected him to pull his gun on her. She should have seen it coming. It was instinct, a security blanket for him. She didn't hide the betrayal, the tears in her eyes as she stood at the barrel of his gun, waiting, testing.

She wasn't the only one struggling with the emotions of what was placed on their shoulders. The burden of being heroes, of being legends, was a lot to take, especially for two people who never believed they could be any good.

After, once the gun was down, they had to save the ship, save the others. That was what was happening, wasn't it? The fate of the team was in their hands now.

And then, the other shoe dropped. The Time Masters were really puppet masters. They were all marionettes on strings. Sara refused to believe that anything she had done, anything they had done together, had been put into motion because of them. Why would the Time Masters care about a couple of people when they rejected human connection themselves?

Maybe what she and Leonard had was real.

 

 

 

 

 

"I've been thinking about me. And you. And me and you," Leonard said, sliding up into her room like he owned the place. It was his version of an apology.

She smirked, bemused, turning her eyes toward the ceiling. "Is that so?"

"Yes."

"So there's a you and me now?"

"Hasn't there always?"

She let him wriggle in his own words until she looked down at him, leaning close enough to kiss. "You're going to have to work harder than that, Snart," she said, smirking and hopping off the bed, leaving the room.

 

 

 

 

 

And it was just them and the machine, Mick was down, the Time Masters were coming. No one else was here. There was no one else to make that choice. Sara knew about sacrifice. She knew he hated how his life had been toyed with by someone else. She hated it, but she understood.

"Get him out of here," Leonard had snarled.

She said "No" then, too. She didn't want to leave him any more then than she would, months and months and months later in Chicago. But she did anyway, but not without a kiss, a final testament that whatever it was they had, whatever choices they made, it had been them, and not the Time Masters.

* * *

 

"Gideon," Sara said, once everyone had left the infirmary. They'd coaxed Mick away with the promise of beer and sweets. "What's happening to him?"

Leonard was in the chair, going through scans and tests by the ship's computer system, unmoving. By the looks of it, his vitals were low. Sara hovered by the second chair.

"Captain Lance," Gideon said, her voice filling the room. "You may want to wait for Professor Stein."

Elsewhere on the ship, the professor was prodded to the infirmary by Gideon. Once he was there, he found Sara and Snart, and the voice of Gideon.

"Professor, if you will explain to Sara what you explained to Mr. Rory just last week before your attempt at brain surgery," the AI said.

"How did you know about that conversation, Gideon?" Martin asked.

"I am this ship, Professor Stein. My apologies."

Seeing Snart in such a weak state, Stein pushed aside his fickleness at Gideon and explained to Sara the same thing he explained to Mick Rory not long ago: It is probable that the Time Master's machine exploded and threw Leonard's cells all across space and time, and somehow in some way, after who knows how many centuries, his cells came back together in Chicago, 2014.

"Is that possible?" Sara asked, more to herself than either the super computer or the neurophysicist in front of her.

"With what we do on a daily basis, Miss Lance, anything is possible," Martin replied.

Sara smiled a sad tight smile. She knew what he meant, what he was getting at. When you lived in a time ship, fought alongside deities with wings and men who could turn into steel, was there any reason to be surprised about a teammate coming back to life?

"And his diagnosis, Gideon?" Martin asked the room, taking up Sara's place as leader for the moment. He could tell she was exhausted, mentally and emotionally; he could read it plainly on her face.

"Unusual, Professor. Mr. Snart's cells have come back together in an unstable collaboration. It is possible that not all of them reformed at the same time, which would explain his fatigue, musculature disparity, and his chronic pain."

"Chronic pain?" Sara piped in.

"Indeed. According to my readings, he is in a constant flux of pain, Captain. If he rematerialized without all of his DNA than it is possible that it is a life-time ailment."

Sara settled back in the second chair sideways, her toes barely reaching the floor.

"And how long would you calculate Mr. Snart's lifetime to be, Gideon?" Martin asked softly, eyeing Sara carefully as he spoke the words.

The computer was quiet for too long, which meant she was trying to figure out the best way to explain her calculations. "Not very long, Professor Stein. Weeks, perhaps months in the state he is in now."

Sara let out a breath and let her head fall in her hands. She rubbed her temples and tried to pick and choose which emotions to feel, the order in which to deal with them. After a moment, she stood. "Can you stabilze him for now, Gideon?"

"I can do my best, Captain."

"Good." Sara nodded. "While Leonard is sleeping, you and Martin try to figure out what that vile contains. I feel like it has something to do with all of this, I just don't know how."

"Of course, Miss Lance," Martin said as the young woman left the infirmary. He lingered a little longer to go over Snart's stats on his own before moving onward to the next task. He was tired from the day's dealings, and he had to stop and return to his bed long before Gideon when it came to figuring out the components to the glowing liquid in the vile.

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn't a surprise that Sara couldn't sleep that night. Amaya found her in the kitchen, where she usually found Mick. No one was sure where the hot-headed criminal was, but at least the Waverider was quiet for now.

"I thought I may find you here," Amaya said, sliding into a seat opposite Sara.

"Am I that obvious?" Sara leaned back, one of her legs propped up against the table, her toes bare and curling over the edge of the seat.

"Did you and this Leonard Snart…I mean, were you…together?"

Sara took in a breath and raised her eyebrows. "Define together."

Amaya frowned and Sara reached across the table toward her and shook her hand. "That was a rhetorical. You uh…you could say we were together, yeah. As together as anyone can be on this ship," she added, remembering Ray and Kendra.

"And Rip Hunter, he didn't disapprove?"

"We're all adults. Besides, didn't you have complicated relationships in the JSA?"

Amaya was about to say no, but that would be a lie. It still stung to think about Rex. "I see," she said, everything clicking into place. "What is our plan now?"

Sara sighed. "Figure out what Martin and Gideon come up with. Locate the source of the vial. If we're lucky, it'll be connected to the…Legion of Doom," she scoffed and rolled her eyes, "and everything will tie up nicely."

"A fine plan, but I meant about Leonard Snart."

Sara tapped her fingernails against the metal surface of the table. "Keep him alive as long as possible until we resolve this. And then we fix him."

"Do you think we can?" Earlier, Sara had called a meeting and explained Snart's health and Stein and Gideon's hypothesizes of what happened to him. It felt pretty far out of all of their comfort zones.

Sara started to nod but then she stopped and looked at the woman out of time in front of her. "I want to believe that we can. It would be a shame if he came back just to die. I know from experience."

Amaya simply nodded an affirmation, not pushing any more than that. Two fingers of whiskey each later and they headed to their separate quarters.

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, Mick Rory had made his way to the infirmary and stood in the shadows, waiting, watching the lines on the screen beside Leonard Snart slide and bump up and down, tracking his vitals. His legs grew stiff standing there, but he didn't move, not until Snart started to shift around and he blinked into the nearly dark room.

Mick walking out of the shadows to appear in front of him would have shocked him into cardiac arrest if Leonard wasn't at least half-expecting it.

"Mick," he said, his voice not as strong as it should have been. "It's been a long time."

Mick grunted and sat on the stool nearby. "Blondie told us what happened to you. Scattered to bits through time and space. Didja know that?"

Leonard digested the information. It felt right. "I do now."

"How long?"

He didn't need to emphasize. Leonard flexed his hands. "It felt like an instant. I'm guessing it was more. Centuries if we're being dramatic."

Mick scoffed. "Lucky. I spent thousands as Chronos."

"It isn't a competition, Mick."

"Hmmph."

They were both quiet for a while. Mick was too stubborn to mention seeing visions of Leonard, and Leonard was too stubborn to ask him how the team was, who the new people were, and where was Rip?

"I let Haircut use your coldgun," Mick said finally, staring at the wall behind Snart's head.

"What?" It came out like a snarl in true Snart fashion. He was almost pleased with himself for the ferocity.

Mick waved a hand. "I was out a partner. Haircut blew up his suit to save the world from zombies—" Snart's eyebrows raised at this, "it's a long story. He was shit at it. Crossed streams and blew up the White House."

That story alone was enough to make Leonard's mild fury turn to amusement. "That sounds like something Ray would do," he said. Imagine if anyone else had heard that story outside of their circle…complete insanity.

"I'm surprised to see you still here," Leonard said after the silence stretched out.

Mick didn't want to be reminded of his emotionally driven hallucination and stood abruptly. "Get some sleep," he grumbled, leaving the room.

"It's all I ever do these days," Leonard said into an empty room.

He didn't know when he fell asleep again, but he woke up to the door sliding open, and Sara walking in with a plate of food. He felt a bit stronger than the previous day, the pain a dull ache rather than a debilitating and crippling misery.

"Breakfast," Sara said softly, seeing that he was awake.

"Thanks," he said, trying to sit up, though he couldn't do much because of the chair angle.

She placed the plate on his lap and stood back. She didn't know what to do with her hands, so she busied herself by plopping down in the other chair and shifting around. "It's not as bad as it looks, huh?" she commented, having nothing else to say and hating herself for it.

He watched her, saying nothing, eating sausage with a ravenous hunger that was more of his mouth talking than his stomach. He hadn't been able to eat more than a few bites of anything a few times a day, no matter how weak his muscles got or how hungry his body felt.

"So we're even now," Sara said finally, folding her hands over her stomach and turning her head to look at him. He was thinner than she remembered, he indeed looked like he had some disease that kept him from keeping healthy. It was such a different sight than she was used to when she pictured him that it was hard for her to look at it.

"What do you mean?"

"We've both died and come back. We're even, in every sense of the word," she continued. They had always been the non-powered people on the team, the dark souls, the ones with blood on their hands, and they always respected each other. That's why they worked so well.

"Guess so," Leonard said, staring at the rest of the plate and taking a small bite of everything just for the flavor. "Except you came back more alive than ever, and I'm withering away."

Sara wasn't sure if "alive" was the word she'd choose, but she understood the analogy. "How are you feeling?"

He tossed his arms out and let them fall against his legs, making sure not to upset the plate. "Better than I've felt since I ended up in that hospital."

"A man materializing out of thin air, that musta been something to see."

"I was naked," he said bluntly, which garnered him a bark of a laugh from Sara. "The nurses were quite surprised about that."

"Oh, I am sure."

An easy silence fell between them. They had always been good at silence, almost as good as they'd been at casual conversation. They said a lot without meaning to, things the other picked up on, things that were buried deep beneath their words.

"What happened to the team?"

Sara sighed. He had a lot to catch up on. "We were given a message to stay away from 1942. Naturally, we didn't listen. Ended up fighting with and alongside the original Justice League and then…things got bad. Rip had to scatter us through time."

"Sounds familiar," Leonard muttered.

"I ended up in Salem. During the trials. Or maybe _I_ started the trials," she added as an afterthought, frowning up at the ceiling. "Was about to get hanged when the team showed up."

"Hanged for what?"

Sara smirked. "Bedding the town's daughters."

Snart chuckled. "Of course you would."

She grinned and shrugged a shoulder. "Nate helped find us. He's the historian. And he can kind of turn into steel."

"And the girl?"

"Amaya. One of the original JSA members. Badass. I think Mick may have a thing for her."

Leonard shrugged. "He usually goes for the dumb ones, but I can see him taking up a challenge."

Sara pressed her lips together to try to resist another smile.

"And Rip?"

Sara sighed. "Lost. Gone. Dead. Not anywhere we can find. It's…bad. I'm the captain now."

"I noticed that."

"Stein was actually chosen first, but he didn't fit the part."

"I missed a lot."

_I missed you_. "You were missed."

"I somehow don't believe that."

She looked over at him, their eyes meeting and holding with an intensity that only two people like them could handle for extended periods of time. He was so close to her now, she could touch him, speak with him, laugh with him again. And yet, if she didn't do her job right he would slip through her fingers. Could she live with that? Could she lose him again?

The doors opened and Martin walked in, interrupting the moment.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said, his usual polite self. "I wanted to let you know that I believe Gideon and I figured out the substance."

The softness in Sara's face and eyes hardened to her captain's face. She stood and nodded. "Good. Let's gather the team."

Leonard attempted to stand while balancing the plate, but it wasn't as easy as it looked when his muscles felt like water and his knees felt as if they'd been shot out. Sara moved to his side and Martin took the breakfast plate without a word. Sara helped his arm around her shoulders and she helped him out of the infirmary slowly.

"I can't believe you've been living like this out there on the streets," Sara whispered to him as they made their way toward the bridge.

_I've had worse_ , he wanted to say, but he didn't. It would be a lie. "It wasn't easy. I'm surprised I was able to get the upper hand on that whiz-kid without my gun."

"Nate is calling him The Warlock."

Leonard scoffed and did his best to look less for wear as Sara set him down in one of the chairs on the bridge. She sat in one and the others followed suit until just Martin stood at the hologram table. He looked ready to do a presentation to a college class, but instead he was stuck with the misfits in front of him.

"Gideon and I have concluded that the liquid in this vial," he motioned toward the cylinder casing it was in, set in the middle of the table, "is a highly concentrated isotope. It is something…well, alien, as Mr. Snart said. We can find no discernable origins from Earth, but we believe we have figured out how it works."

"Can you speed this up, Doc, I've got a date with a beer," Mick roared out.

Martin paused. "Yes, well, with our testing and combined brainpower, if you will, it appears that the vial is like a genie, a magic lamp."

"Excuse me?" Sara said, just as Jax said, "Grey, you're telling me magic is real?"

Ray sat back as Martin tried to collect his thoughts to reply, a stupid happy grin on his boyish face. "This is awesome," he said, more at the team back together—or as much as it could be—than at the idea of magical genies.

"Now, let me, let me explain," Martin said, calming the group. "From what we can determine, whoever takes this…well, to put it simply, whatever they want to happen to them…happens to them. This Warlock character? A child, wants to be a superhero or super villain. So he can fly, he's invulnerable, and who knows what else. With that sort of greed, the isotope is burned up quickly, and an addictive quality is thrust into the blood stream. If someone who was selfless were to use it to aid themselves, it is likely that the addictiveness wouldn't be applicable. It's almost as if the liquid has sentience, but something so alien that I honestly cannot begin to wrap my head around it."

"So you're saying," Sara started, sitting forward. Everyone started talking at once. "So, you're saying," she said again, louder, quieting the others, "If say Jax wanted to turn to steel like Nate, he could take a drop of that, think _real_ hard and _wham_!?"

"Hypothetically, yes. We obviously couldn't try this on a subject, but that is our conclusion."

"I appreciate your acknowledgement of my intelligence, Professor Stein," Gideon's voice came from everywhere, "but I merely gave you the chemical compound and you hypothesized the full idea."

"Yes well, you helped a great deal," Martin said, sheepishly to the computer system.

Sara's eyes lingered on Snart. "Do we know if this is the only vial of the stuff? Where it came from? Anything that could help us track it?"

"It is a very strong substance, Captain Lance," Gideon said. "I can search the area quickly but covering the whole planet will take a few hours. If I could isolate any other signatures of the same isotope, I can bring us directly to it."

"Thank you, Gideon," Sara said, jumping to her feet. "So, where do we think this came from? I bet you it's the speedster working with Dahrk and Merlyn. I know a thing or two about speedsters, and I know they can travel to other worlds, travel through time and who knows what else."

"Is the Warlock going to be a problem?" Ray asked.

Gideon answered. "I canvased the surrounding area and found nothing close to the isotope that Mr. Snart stole. It's safe to say that he will not be a problem, at least not for us."

"Good. Moving on," Sara said, pacing and talking with her hands. "Either the speedster planted this here for us, or he lost it, somehow. Since Dahrk and the others didn't attack us directly, I assume it's the latter. For now."

"So what do we do?" Jax asked.

"We let Gideon sweep the planet. See if we can find them in this timeline or another. Until then, rest up, we're probably going to be in for a fight." At that dismissive tone, the others got up and mulled around. Sara stood back, gears in her head turning.

Once it looked as if Snart was about to pass out again, Sara intervened and Mick helped him back to the infirmary.

"Can't I sleep in an actual bed?" he snarled.

"You couldn't hike yourself up there if you tried," Sara mused, trailing behind them.

"Plus I hear the chair's got the good drugs," Mick pointed out.

Snart shrugged and got as comfortable as he could in the chair. His eyes stayed on Sara as she lingered in the doorway, long after Mick left.

"Just say it, Sara," he told her. The pain was already subsiding thanks to whatever concoction Gideon had cooked up for him.

She rushed into the room, wringing her hands, not bothering to sit down. She stood, her thigh pressed against his knee; he could barely feel it through the way his nerves were on fire. "You could use some of that isotope," she said, not bothering to butter him up first.

Snart sighed. He had a feeling that's where her mind had gone. "I can't."

"Why _not_?" The words came out harsher than she intended.

"Because you and I both know I'm a selfish bastard."

"You're not _that_ selfish," she mumbled.

"I'm a thief. I'm stamped with selfish on my forehead, Sara."

God, she forgot how much he said her name. It was infuriating now, when she wanted to be angry with him and upset that he wasn't going to take this chance. "But it could make you better."

"Do we know that? What if the good ol' Doc's hypothesis is wrong? What if I become addicted to the stuff and turn into a walking skeleton like that kid?"

"But what if you don't?" Her argument was as weary as she felt.

He tilted his head to the side and lifted his hand, brushing it against her wrist, circling his fingers there. "Sara."

"What?"

"I heard your plan. Vial first, then me."

"That's what I say as the team's captain, not what I say as _me_."

"It's the same thing."

He was right, and it bothered her that she couldn't put a finger on the reason why. She twisted her hand around and locked her fingers with his. "I won't let you die again. You only get one free pass."

"And one third chance," he added, softly.

She squeezed his hand, lingering for a moment before she left, her mind a swirl of possibilities.

Sara couldn't help it, really, she had to do everything she could to save his life. That's what she signed up for when she agreed to be on Rip Hunter's team. She may not have known it then, but it was molding her into someone better than she could have ever been on her own.

 

 

 

 

 

"Captain Lance," Gideon said not long after, while Sara was drinking water—and wishing it was something stronger—in Rip's office.

"Yeah, Gideon?"

"I cannot find any traces of the isotope within this entire state. We have the only vial readily available to the one Mr. Heywood calls The Warlock."

"That's good. I guess," Sara added.

"And upon further analysis of the material, I have come to a conclusion about its origins."

"Did you scan the whole planet already?" Sara asked, impressed.

"No. The isotope vibrates at a level inconsistent with this Earth."

Sara straightened up. " _This_ Earth?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Sara pushed herself to her feet, her mind once again connecting dots. Everything was starting to slip into place. Her original hunch was looking more and more correct. The vial, the isotope, and a way to save Leonard…it was all pointing to a single final puzzle piece.

"Gideon, gather everyone in the bridge."

"Yes, Captain."

 

 

 

 

 

Five minutes later, everyone was roused and scattered about the control room. Mick had wordlessly helped Leonard make his way to the room as well. It didn't take a genius to see the tension between the two crooks was far from patched over. But that could be dealt with later.

Sara had Gideon repeat her analysis of the vial.

"So what I've figured out is that the vial _must_ be from this other earth. It would make sense since speedsters can travel between worlds and Dahrk has a speedster on his team."

"Other earth?" Amaya asked.

Sara nodded. "A few of us met someone from another world not long ago. Supergirl?" Sara met the gazes of those who had been picked for dealing with that alien invasion. Even Mick had a stupid grin on his face as he remembered meeting the blond he simply called Skirt. "She's from another Earth. I mean she's also an alien but that's not the point."

"I sure missed a whole hell of a lot," Snart said from his chair.

"Look, the point is, we need to go to whatever Earth this vial is from and try to figure out if there's more of it, if there's something to connect this to the other speedster."

"Okay but how are we going to do that?" Ray asked.

"I don't think Gideon is equipped to deal with multiple earths. Multiple timelines, yeah, but, not this," Jax pointed out.

"It's simple. We need a speedster. Barry Allen," Sara suggested.

Leonard's lip curled in distasted. "The Flash."

Sara hesitated just a moment. Leonard had no idea about the message future Barry had sent them, and it wasn't until then that the rest of the crew learned that Barry was also the Flash. She reminded herself that Snart used to _work_ , for lack of a better word, in Central City, and it was no surprise to her that he would figure out the Flash's identity. "Exactly. He and his team have a lot of experience with this sort of thing."

"So we're heading back to Central City?" Ray asked, glancing around.

"No place like home," Mick rumbled.

Sara nodded. "Everyone get buckled in." She moved toward the Captain's chair, hoping Leonard could handle the time jump. "Gideon, chart a course to Central City, January 2017."

"Yes, Captain."

 

 

 

 

 

In 2017, Cisco was drinking an ICEE and multitasking on his computer when the security alarms starting going off.

"Uh….uh guys! We have…what the heck. We have something on the roof! Barry?" He pressed his hand to his ear comm.

"Got it," was accompanied by a rush of wind as Barry Allen zoomed to the roof. He arrived just as the cloaked Waverider materialized on the roof of STAR Labs. "Cisco, it's okay," he said into his comm. "It's just the Legends."

"Leg— _Legends_? Did we invite them this time?" Cisco asked.

"Let's find out." Barry pulled down his cowl as the cargo door opened, revealing the team. "Sara," he said, spotting her immediately. They were all dressed in their gear, ready for a fight.

"Barry," Sara replied with a small smile, giving him a quick hug before turning around to survey her team.

It didn't take long for Barry to pick out Snart, though he definitely looked worse for the wear. And…alive for one.

Leonard had refused Mick, or anyone's help this time, walking off the ship on unsteady feet.

"Snart," Barry said, his voice surprised and confused. Just weeks ago Ray had told him that Snart died…then again, people coming back from the dead shouldn't be all that surprising to him. "How…"

"Long time, Barry," Leonard replied.

"We need your help, Barry. You and your whole team," Sara said, stepping toward the crimson speedster.

Barry nodded and turned his attention to the white clad assassin. "Uh yeah, sure. Let's get inside."

Introductions were made for those who weren't already familiar with each other. Iris, Wally, even Joe was there, along with Cisco, Caitlin, HR and Julian. Sara and Stein had already discussed asking for help from Caitlin with Leonard, and he was shuffled off to her medical room for a few more tests and to work out a hypothesis.

Sara explained their mission, starting with how Snart found them, their ideas about who was behind this new isotope, showed them the vial, and explained where it could have possibly come from.

"Give it here," Cisco said, standing up and motioning toward the cylinder. "This may not work, but let's see where this vibes me."

He took it in his hand and everyone stepped back. It didn't look like anything happened to everyone in front of him, but he froze in a trance for a few moments before opening his eyes.

"Earth Two," he said, confirming Sara's thoughts. "I saw another speedster…"

"Another?" Barry asked. The speedster of Earth Two was Jesse, but Cisco would have said that specifically.

"Whoever it was was eerily familiar dude, like…eerily."

"Was it Jesse?" Wally piped up.

Cisco shook his head. "No. Definitely not."

"What does this mean?" Sara asked, wanting to get to the bottom of all of this.

"It means that there is another speedster, so you're right. You say he's been following you through time?" Barry asked.

"Yeah. And somehow bringing Darhk and Malcolm with him. They're trying to destroy the timeline to find this object to rewrite reality. Or so we think. It's hard to know." Sara paused and glanced over at Martin and Caitlin, who were talking animatedly about something. It looked positive.

"Do you _have_ to get to Earth Two?" Cisco asked. "I mean, I can vibe you there but we already know where the vial's from. We can take care of destroying it or finding out if there's any more of it."

"No, no," Caitlin said, interrupting. "They _need_ to go to Earth Two."

"Why?" Sara asked sharply.

"Miss Lance," Martin started, "I believe we've come up with a way to save Mr. Snart's life."

It felt like the air around Sara compressed, making her pulse race, spikes of excitement and hope mingling with her anticipation for a showdown. She didn't know if it was going to happen, but she was ready for whatever it was.

"How?" Sara asked, her voice tight.

"Martin explained everything to me, and with my limited knowledge of space and time anomalies, it's very possible for Snart's DNA to rewrite itself if it is introduced to his DNA that hasn't been spread throughout the galaxy already," Caitlin said.

Sara waited for a simple answer to her question.

"What she means is that if we can find completed DNA of Mr. Snart's, then Gideon can help in the process of completing his unstable atoms and in leman's terms, fix him," Martin finished.

"So we go back in time and nick some samples from him before he left Central City with us and Rip," Ray said.

"We could risk a paradox or aberration doing it that way," Martin said.

"Then how does this help us?" Sara asked, her hope wavering.

"When Barry went to Earth Two for the first time, he saw that every person on our Earth had a counterpart on Earth Two. They would have the same DNA. It would vibrate at a different frequency, but if we implement the vial and pray a little, we should be able to introduce Earth Two Snart's DNA and stabilize his atoms," Caitlin said.

It was a stretch, but Sara would take anything now. "Okay. We should see what we can find out about this vial while on Earth Two as well. Barry," she turned around, catching the speedster's attention. "You've been on Earth Two before. Can you come with us?"

"Yeah, of course," Barry nodded. "There's uh…one thing about Earth Two though…"

"And what's that?" Leonard had joined them.

"Well…uh…the other Snart, your doppelganger, he's the uh…he's the mayor of Central City. So it'll be difficult to get close to him."

"I'll come with."

"Leonard," Sara warned. He was unstable enough that she was worried that the time jump had already cut his short life expectancy. She didn't want to risk something happening to him going through a portal to another earth when he could stay here and wait for them.

"I'm coming with you," he clarified and that was that.

 

 

 

 

 

Twenty minutes later, Sara, Leonard, Nate and Amaya alongside Barry were ready to travel to another Earth.

"I wish I could see that place," Ray mused.

"Raymond," Sara tilted her head, "this isn't rocket science we're doing. We just need a small team. You'll get your chance some day. You _did_ get to stop an alien invasion, remember?"

"True," he said, stepping back, sated for now.

"Alright," Cisco said, putting on his goggles. "I'll open up the portal, give you a few hours and then open another, okay?"

"What exactly do we need to bring back?" Sara asked.

"As much as you can. Blood, hair, skin samples," Caitlin explained. Nate had the medical bag she had given him in his jacket.

Sara nodded once and Cisco opened the portal. It looked like something you wouldn't want to jump through, but they were out of options. Sara grabbed Leonard's elbow and they jumped through. Once all five of them were on the other side, the portal closed.

"Welcome to Earth Two," Barry said with an almost proud smile on his face. He lifted the vial from his suit. "I'm going to take this to the Harrison Wells on this earth. It's from here, he should be able to know how to destroy it and if the other speedster did steal it from here, the last place they'd expect it to end up again is here again." And with that, he was off.

"Great. Now what?" Leonard hissed through clenched teeth.

"He'll be back soon," Sara said. "Let's go."

Their outfits didn't stick out as much here as they did on their home planet, and while this Central City was similar to the one they knew, there were differences that were hard not to notice.

"This place is so posh," Amaya said as they headed toward the center of the city.

"It's too clean," Leonard said.

"This is fascinating," Nate said, not even trying to hide his glee.

Barry returned before they even made it two blocks. "Alright. Let's go uh…"

"Break and enter into the mayor's house?" Sara supplied for him.

Barry wasn't pleased with the arrangement, but it was the best idea they had.

"Don't worry about it, Barry. That's why you brought me," Snart told him with a smirk.

They flagged down a cab to take them close enough to the mayor's place without it being suspicious. Once on the residential street, Barry scouted out ahead, frizzing out security cameras and checking for physical security. He missed just one guard that Sara handled easily by the back porch. Amaya kept watch as they broke into the house, Barry whizzing through to unplug any phone or alarm wires.

"Mr. Mayor?" Sara called out as the team made their way into the den. The shape of a man standing in front of the fire greeted them.

"Something tells me I should have expected this," the man said. His voice was just like Leonard's though there was something creepily different. "Another speedster, I see." The mayor stood and nodded toward Barry in the corner. "Not one of Zoom's understudies I hope."

"No. And we're not here to harm you," Barry told him.

The mayor nodded, waving a glass of whiskey in his left hand. The only light in the room was from the fire. Most of them were shrouded in darkness. "Why have you come?"

Sara, stepping up to her leader position, walked forward until the fire flickered across her face. "We need samples of your DNA," she said.

"Is that all?" The mayor turned around, squinting into the darkness

"It may sound crazy but we're not from this earth," she continued. It was so strange to be talking to Leonard but having it not be Leonard. He looked identical, but the slight differences were enough to make him feel _off_. He held himself differently, his voice was the same, but the inflection was ever so slightly different. "We're trying to save a life and you're our only hope."

"What life?"

"Mine." Leonard Snart stepped out from the shadows, beside Sara. The mayor was startled, seeing the mirror image of himself.

"What is this?" The mayor asked, visibly shaken.

"That other world we're from? It's a parallel earth," Sara tried again. "You have a doppelganger," she put her hand lightly on Leonard's arm, "and this is him."

The mayor squinted and took a step back. "I don't believe this."

"If you don't believe us, maybe you'll believe Harrison Wells. I know for a fact that you two are sort of friends," Barry said, stepping into the light again. "This man, this other you, he's dying and we can save him, if you just get a sample of your DNA. That's all we're asking for. Then we go back to our world and you never see us again."

That seemed to do the trick. With nothing to lose, Nate quickly gathered the samples necessary, while Leonard leaned against the nearest wall and tried hard to keep himself together. Sara walked up to him, standing close.

"How are you doing?"

"You gotta stop asking that."

"I know this is all a front, but if things get too bad for you…Leonard…"

"I'll be fine, Sara. I…I trust you." He lifted one of his hands and lightly brushed his fingers across her cheek before pushing away from the wall and toward Nate and the mayor.

"All set," the historian said. He wrapped everything up in the medic bag and the team gathered themselves, ready to go.

"That's it?" the mayor asked, getting up and looking at them. He would never be able to quite pin point the number of people who had broken into his house that night; the lighting made it impossible to tell.

"Yes, sir," Barry said. "Like I said, you won't be seeing us ever again. Oh, and uh…you may want to make sure you get your security feeds back online before someone else breaks in."

With that, they exited through the back door and headed down the street. There were no cabs here, and Barry couldn't drag all of them with him to the STAR Labs. Once they got to the edge of the city, they hailed a cab and took it, following Barry who had run ahead of them a while back.

"You really think this is gonna work?" Leonard asked, his lips brushing Sara's ear through her hair. Nate sat in the front of the cab, Amaya in the back with them.

Sara took in a deep breath and closed her eyes for a long moment. "It has to," she replied, leaning her head against his shoulder. She was so tired, she could feel herself becoming overcome with emotional fatigue. There was only so much a person could handle within just a few days.

They got to STAR Labs, met yet another version of Harrison Wells and found that the isotope was easily neutralized. He also gave over some calculations he thought would help in mixing the compound with DNA samples to stabilize the atoms. With that knowledge now at their fingertips, they thanked him for his help and returned to the spot where Cisco had punched a hole through the dimensions.

As they waited, Leonard put his arm around Sara's shoulders, feeling himself growing weaker. She didn't say anything, and neither did he.

Soon, the portal opened and they went through it again, a sensation Sara was sure that she could live without experiencing again for the rest of her life. She'd just gotten used to time jumping; she'd leave interdimensional traveling to Team Flash.

Once they were back, the formulas given by Harrison Wells were given to Martin and Caitlin and Cisco and they went about their work. Meanwhile, they found everyone looking pretty cozy in STAR Labs. Ray helped Leonard back to the Waverider while the doctors did what they did best and tried to save a life.

It didn't take long for Stein to go rushing back to the ship, Caitlin joining him because she wanted to help…not to mention she was interested to see the inside of a timeship. Leaving the rest of the crew to mingle, doze in their seats, catch up for those who knew each other already, and anything else they wanted to do. Sara chatted with Iris and Barry and eventually sat in a corner and rightfully dozed off, having had little sleep in the past forty-eight hours, at least not enough to feel rested.

A few hours passed, and STAR Labs was starting to look like a college frat house after a party; people in costumes passed out everywhere. Martin and Caitlin reappeared and roused everyone with the smell of coffee. Sara was the hardest to wake. Ray had to shake her shoulder quite hard to rouse her.

"What…what?" she grumbled, struggling to open her eyes.

Ray passed her a paper cup filled with liquid caffeine. "Coffee," he said simply, straightening up.

She rubbed her eyes and sipped the coffee, eyes following the movements of the crew and Team Flash as everyone began waking up. She spotted Stein, who looked both drowsy but accomplished.

Pushing aside her fatigue, Sara moved through the room toward him. "Snart?" she asked, afraid to hear his answer.

"If we did everything correctly, he should be recovering," Martin said. He gave her a warm smile and patted her shoulder.

Caitlin appeared, holding a cup in her hands. "According to…Gideon, he should be fine."

Had their crazy plan actually worked? Blood from a doppelganger from a parallel earth? Since when did her life get so completely akin to a science fiction novel?

Sara hurried off immediately and Barry quickly put the pieces together. "Wait…Sara and Snart…they're not…?"

The team of Legends immediately glanced amidst each other and Ray cleared his throat loudly.

"No," Iris gasped, flabbergasted.

Martin was the first to speak. "When you live on a timeship, your choice are limited," he said, as a sort of joke.

Iris scoffed and she and Cisco immediately started a heated whispering debate about how it happened, leaving everyone else to try to move onward and ease the awkward tension in the air.

 

 

 

 

 

Aboard the Waverider, Sara's heart thudded in her chest. Excitement and relief was flooding her veins.

"Mr. Snart is in his quarters, Captain," Gideon told her without needing to be prompted. Sara headed in that direction, trying not to run but finding it difficult not to. She rounded a corner and saw his door was open. She hurried toward it and saw him, dressed in full combat attire, looking more alive than ever.

Sensing someone else there, Snart turned and saw her. Sara raced toward him and threw her arms around him, colliding with his chest hard enough to make him stumble. She tightened her arms around his back, digging her fingernails into the material of his shirt. She squeezed her eyes shut tight.

Snart didn't hug her back, but he rested his hands on her waist in an attempt to move her away. "I don't—" he started.

"Shut up, Leonard," Sara said, tightening her grip to make him understand. She had to allow herself this. He was solid and while a bit thin, he was here and he wasn't going to just disperse or wither away in front of her. She'd lost too many people already, she couldn't have afforded to lose another.

Finally, she stepped back, though her hands lingered on his arms and his hands stayed where they were. His eyes were clearer, and although his gaze had never lost its intensity, it was a miracle to see him already so much more alive. "How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Pretty good considering my atoms were blown across space and time," he replied.

She studied his face, a frown line forming in between her eyebrows.

"I'm fine," he said, this time with a little less cheekiness. "Thank you, Sara."

She kissed him then, pulling him down to her without warning, her hands along his jaw, crushing their lips together. She told herself it was one final test to see if he was faking it.

She concluded he wasn't.

As quickly as it began, the kiss was over and she spoke against his lips before pulling away. "I have something for you." She walked backward a few steps, disappeared and then reappeared a moment later, his cold gun in hand.

He actually smiled at the sight, a rare feat for him. It felt like coming home when he took it in his hands.

"Do you think you can work alongside the Flash to save the world, Leonard?" she asked while he was distracted.

He sighed, holstering the piece at his hip and giving her _a look_. "I won't make it easy on him."

Sara grinned. "Good." She started walking out of his room and down the hall. He trailed behind. "Let's go be heroes, Captain Cold."

"I'm not a hero."

"Yes you are, deal with it."

"That doesn't mean I have to like it."

Sara's laugh echoed down the hallway, colliding with his atoms in a new sort of way that he couldn't quite place his finger on. He thought, maybe for a moment, it was the first time he was truly happy, and not just ecstatic with greed. Whatever it was, he let it wash over him and followed her out of the Waverider on another adventure to save the world.

**Author's Note:**

> If you actually read through this whole thing thank you???? So much??????


End file.
